Optimizing or allocating shelf space typically involves a manual, or visual, inspection of the shelf. However, conventional approaches are highly prone to error, inefficient, and time consuming. In modern retail environments, shelf space is costly. Also, the manner in which items are organized on a shelf is important to many stores, and may impact inventory levels, retention costs, sales, and/or profits.
In particular, warehouses can store large numbers of stock keeping units (SKUs), for example, thousands or millions, where each SKU may be stored at a unique location. Many laborers may be employed to count the available quantity of each SKU in each location, which can result in a significant operational expense. Additionally, in fast-paced businesses where the availability of a product at a certain location in a warehouse is critical, product outages are costly and negatively impact service rates, and may require additional human resources to count the SKUs. Warehouse operators rely on a product being available in its assigned location for efficient and cost-effective retrieval of the product when it is requested, which requires a human eye to visually confirm a stored product's location, quantity, and so on at its assigned location.